Title: The Ringer // Author: Jenny Shank // Genre: Fiction // 352 p. // Publisher: The Permanent Press // March 2011
TONIGHT, yes, tonight–Friday night–at Tattered Cover in Denver’s LoDo: Jenny Shank will read from her debut novel, The Ringer. I interviewed Jenny last week for NewWest, where she is the books editor. Here’s the scoop on the book from my interview (click here for a link to the full interview):
…The Ringer begins with a tragic mistake when a police officer shoots and kills a man on a no-knock warrant that’s been written for the wrong address. The shooting intimately affects the two families involved—the police officer’s and the slain man’s—but it also sparks an outcry from an entire community concerned with larger issues of justice, race, and class. The fictional setting for this novel is Denver, and the drama plays out against the backdrop of championship Little League baseball. Baseball fans should note that The Ringer’s publication coincides with the beginning of Major League spring training, but this book will appeal equally to baseball fans and to those who just want to read a great story that combines police drama with personal loss and a community’s quest for redemption.
Jenny Shank is an award-winning writer who grew up in Denver and currently lives in Boulder with her husband, daughter, and son. The Ringer, her first novel, was a semi-finalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship and the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award. I recently caught up with Jenny Shank to find out more about The Ringer’s real-life influences and to understand what makes this accomplished young writer tick. Shank will discuss The Ringer at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) on April 8 (7:30 p.m.) and at the Boulder Book Store on April 27 (7:30 p.m.).
If you’d like to attend the reading, check out this link to Denver’s Tattered Cover for more info:
http://www.tatteredcover.com/event/jenny-shank-ringer
Tattered Cover says:
Historic LoDo: Local journalist and writer Jenny Shank will read from and sign her debut novel The Ringer ($28.00 Permanent Press). “Jenny Shank has written a gritty, beautiful novel about growing up in urban America. Two decent, hard-working families share a love of baseball and the same city streets, which should be enough to unite them. Instead a police raid goes wrong, shots ring out, and the families find themselves marooned on opposite sides of a racial divide. Shank insists the reader consider both points of view, with startling results. Her characters are beautifully drawn and you feel as though you’re watching life itself unfold in these pages.” —Helen Thorpe, author of Just Like Us
Photo: @The Permanent Press
DOWN and OUT 